I am writing this letter in hopes that your assistance may improve an exceedingly
frustrating and disappointing experience my community continues to have with a project we
are working on with your firm.

As a matter of background, in October 2011 the City of Dunwoody transitioned 911 calltaking
services from DeKalb County to the Chattahoochee River 911 Authority (ChatComm).
ChatComm provides call-taking and police dispatch but DeKalb County continues to dispatch
fire and emergency medical services.

Prior to the transition, we embarked on project to connect these two 911 centers through a
CAD-to-CAD interface between OSSI Sungard (CAD provider for Dunwoody and ChatComm)
and InterAct Public Safety (CAD provider for DeKalb County).

All major development on the interface was completed in early 2012. It is now March 2014
and we continue to face delay after delay in testing to complete this project. The testing
phase of the project has been a disastrous set of failures.

The Mayor and City Council are furious that this process has taken several years and is still
incomplete. My staff and I have run out of answers as to why this project has been ongoing
for nearly three years.

The public pressure has mounted to get this project completed to levels I haven't seen in
my 17 years in local government. Frankly, the reputation of the City, our service providers
and the vendors responsible for completing the job has suffered mightily. Every missed
expectation and additional "bug" in the interface that prevents the system from working
properly is growing the discontent astronomically.

I am at the breaking point with my patience with the failure of this interface to work
properly. Your immediate attention is critical to bring this matter to a successful conclusion.
Sincerely,

A center-to-center testing call at the end of February revealed four final challenges from the
CAD system update that was completed in February. Following the testing call we launched
an action plan to address each of the issues identified and are making steady progress.

One issue relates to fire response zone mapping and staging. As part of the CAD update, an
outdated response zone map had been connected to the interface. Rather than staging units
from the nearest Dunwoody station, for certain parts of the City, the system was suggesting
dispatch from stations further out in the surrounding area. To correct this issue we had to
review the code, locate the outdated response zone map, and replace it. The second relates
to how incidents on Interstate 285 displayed once transferred to DeKalb. We determined
that because these incidents are shared with cross streets (such as I-285 Eastbound /
Ashford Dunwoody), the issue was that the"/" character was not transferring correctly. To
address that issue, the developers are making additional code changes so the "/" character
would be properly translated. The final two issues relate to the transference of certain
determinant codes from ChatComm to DeKalb. This issue will be addressed by updating the
translation table which connects the two systems. We are working with the developers to
determine how long these final changes and updates will take.

All the key parties in the project are focused on the decisive steps for completion so we can
surpass the industry standard for call transference.

ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATIONS

In recent days, Council has requested clarification related to the development of the
interface. First, regarding who is developing the interface and secondly related to the ability
to outsource that development.

Unlike a traditional software project, the City has not hired a software vendor to write code
and develop the interface. The interface code is developed by the two CAD vendors. One of
which is under contract with DeKalb County and the other under contract with ChatComm.
There is no technology vendor that is responsible to the City on this project.

Secondly, it has been suggested that a third party could connect these two disparate CAD
systems and develop the interface in a manner that was more efficient. Early in the process
the City explored this option. We found a third party software vendor that agreed to develop
the interface but the two CAD vendors would not agree to the arrangement. Utilizing a third
party developer would have allowed each CAD vendor's proprietary code to be held by a
third party and they did not feel comfortable with any level of confidentiality agreements.

Both of these issues highlight the fact that had we been allowed to utilize a third party
software vendor, we would have had a party beholden to us to complete the interface. As it
is, we have little leverage over the two CAD system providers building the interface. We are
forced to allow the two vendors to work together to build the interface using a software
requirements document they jointly developed and to which they jointly agreed.

In short, we do not manage the technology or the development of the technology. Staff
works diligently with both 911 centers and the CAD vendors to ensure resources are
appropriately dedicated to the project and that time and attention is focused on the decisive
steps needed to reach completion.

13 comments:

At the 5:50 portion of the video, city manager Warren Hutmacher tries to restrain citizen suggestions that someone should be held accountable for the 3 years of delay in implementing this 911 project that he overseas. Warren states, “Part of the frustration from the public, and certainly part of the frustration from our staff, is that we don’t have someone that we’ve hired that we can fire because they didn’t do a good job for us.” Um, someone please provide him with a mirror! All of City Council and our Mayor look pathetically week as they permit someone to be employed by our city who has a three year track record of horrible management. I think no one on Council has the guts to fire him because they are all afraid it will make themselves and the city look bad. Put your egos aside and take care of citizen safety.

What's your point, Joe? Are you inferring that the City Council and the Mayor resemble a "week" because there are seven of them? Oh my, what a clever lad you you are! Oh this wasn't a pun? Well, then take my advice and brush up on your semantics before spewing your hate.

History has proven that being an effective outspoken responsible citizen requires a bit more in the way of intelligent and scholastic articulation than just being a sad angry little man with an axe to grind.

An agreement between the two CADs where Interact took the lead developing the interface but they were not provided OSSI code and we expected it to work? A strongly worded letter to Interact (4yrs to late); really? Let's hope they don't view it as slander. This whole fisaco makes no sense or is it cents? In 2010 the city could of worked with the county to get the features they wanted added to the CAD at minimal cost. Now 3 years later and a million or two dollars later the city states they are shocked to learn the computer code of rival companies will not interface seamlessly. Where's the strongly worded letter to OSSI? Dunwoody Yes never mentioned 911 and after a million or two and years of implementation delays (not to mention the delay in dispatching medical calls); I'm really wondering why we are so wedded to OSSI/Chattcom ??

What Terry said was that Ms. McQuaig's response time (in spite of all the issues--ed.) was below the national benchmark. His comment was applied to only this one, particular example.

And, this example is perhaps not the best to try to extrapolate overall performance from...

BTW, Ms. McQuaig lives within a couple of blocks of the fire station. Their "response" time was less than 1 minute; very atypical for the average transit time.

Take off the rose-colored glasses, and recognize that we have a problem of our own making, here. The timeline shows that WITH Chatcomm the response time was over a minute LONGER than if Ms. McQuaig could have reached DeKalb 911 on her own. If CAD-CAD had been in place, the response time would have been less. So we get slower response times because CAD-CAD doesn't work. Simple fact. No one, even Mr. Hutmacher, disputes that. (You can listen for yourself during the Feb. 24th video/audio of the City Council meeting.)

Watched the latest city council videos. I think it's clear - it's about time we admitted it - Republicans, whether right-wing or middle of the road, suck at governance, especially when they attempt to privatize typically government functions.

They either figure it's private enterprise, so they don't have to monitor performance/progress and not establish quality SLA's as it is PRIVATE ENTERPRISE and that is the basis of their libertarian / capitalistic manifesto, or don't care how the contractors perform as they have already lined their pocket with the kickback.

The upper-middle class white utopia called "The City of Dunwoody" has failed and if we continue with it we will be like 1930's Germany and the dissatisfaction of the citizens will only allow the fascist element in - the Save Dunwoody thugs (they are even attempting to take seats in the legislature from the other moderates).

Let's swallow our pride, wave the white flag, and ask DeKalb County to take us back, where at least the process worked and people weren't dying to get an ambulance.

One last comment, as there are so many ass-hats in the city that make vitriolic public comments that include personal attacks, remove the Boy Scouts during that segment of the meeting.

Heneghan Philosophy on Public Service

As a long time resident of the Dunwoody North community who created this blog to fulfill two ideals. First is that when I have the ability to make a difference, I have a responsibility to do so and second, transparency in Government breeds self-corrective behavior.

After the creation of the City of Dunwoody which I worked to establish, I stepped down from being the President of the Dunwoody North Civic Association to run for a seat on the new City Council. Since my election in 2008, I have prided myself of posting every public document and agenda item to this blog for all to see.